GrooveStomp

Android: Mainframe

2017-05-17

After lunch today I made a visit to a local boardgame store just to see what was
new. The local gamestore near my place is much cheaper, but has a drastically
different selection, so it’s always nice to see what else is available.

There were two notable games on today’s visit:

Agricola: Family Edition

Android: Mainframe

I’ve seen mention of Agricola: Family Edition before, so that was neat to see in
person. I watched a Tom Vasel review of it, and I think I would still prefer to
play Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small.

Onto the other game; Android: Mainframe is completely new on my radar. A quick
read on the back says:

Two Player

Strategy Boardgame

< 30 min. play time

This sounds absolutely fantastic!

I’ve read two text reviews on Boardgamegeek, and unfortunately this game looks
like a dud. I think this is really interesting, because I’ve been seriously
thinking about Android: Netrunner a lot lately. It’s a game that I think is
really interestingly broken. I won’t go into all the details here; I’ll just
say that I’ve written pages of notes on it and am trying to identify what I like
in the original design.

I was excited to see this two player strategic boardgame in the Android universe
because there seems to be a large crossover with my thinking on Android:
Netrunner. Things I would have liked to have seen in this version:

Retain the theme.

Make the theme far more accessible.
The theme should aid understanding and make the mechanics intuitive.
Android: Netrunner horrendously fails at this.

Retain asymmetric roles.

Remove output randomness.

Remove out-of-band deck construction.

Much more!

A quick glance makes it obvious that none of this applies to Android: Mainframe.
This game is simply a rethemed version of Bauhaus1 with some random elements added via your
“powers” in your hand.

Bauhaus looks pretty fun, but I think the attempt to theme it and add random
elements probably subverts the basic game. Oh well. I guess this is good
motivation to keep doing my thinking and planning on an Android: Netrunner
influenced game design of my own! :-)